The Nightingale to the Workman

Fair summer is here, glad summer is here!
O hark! 'tis to you I am singing:
The sun is all gold in a heaven of blue,
The birds in the forest are trilling for you,
The flies 'mid the grasses are winging;
The little brook babbles--its secret is sweet.
The loveliest flowers would circle your feet,--
And you to your work ever clinging!...
Come forth! Nature loves you. Come forth! Do not fear!
Fair summer is here, glad summer is here,
Full measure of happiness bringing.
All creatures drink deep; and they pour wine anew
In the old cup of life, and they wonder at you.
Your portion is waiting since summer began;
Then take it, oh, take it, you laboring man!

'Tis summer today; ay, summer today!
The butterflies light on the flowers.
Delightfully glistens the silvery rain,
The mountains are covered with greenness again,
And perfumed and cool are the bowers.
The sheep frisk about in the flowery vale,
The shepherd and shepherdess pause in the dale,
And these are the holiest hours!...
Delay not, delay not, life passes away!
'Tis summer today, sweet summer today!
Come, throttle your wheel's grinding power!...
Your worktime is bitter and endless in length;
And have you not foolishly lavished your strength?
O think not the world is with bitterness rife,
But drink of the wine from the goblet of life.

O, summer is here, sweet summer is here!
I cannot forever be trilling;
I flee on the morrow. Then, you, have a care!
The crow, from the perch I am leaving, the air
With ominous cries will be filling.
O, while I am singing to you from my tree
Of love, and of life, and of joy yet to be,
Arouse you!--O why so unwilling!...
The heavens remain not so blue and so clear;--
Now summer is here! Come, summer is here!
Reach out for the joys that are thrilling!
For like you who fade at your wheel, day by day,
Soon all things will fade and be carried away.
Our lives are but moments; and sometimes the cost
Of a moment o'erlooked is eternity lost.

Morris Rosenfeld

Morris Rosenfeld, born on December 28, 1862, and deceased on June 22, 1923, was a Yiddish poet known for his poignant and evocative poems depicting the struggles and hardships of Jewish immigrants in New York City's sweatshops in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His work often highlighted themes of poverty, labor rights, and the immigrant experience. Rosenfeld's poetry remains significant for its historical and cultural commentary, capturing the essence of the Jewish immigrant experience in America.

Morris Rosenfeld

The First Bath of Ablution

Morris Rosenfeld, Simple Poetry

My Boy

Morris Rosenfeld, Simple Poetry

A Fellow Slave

Morris Rosenfeld, Simple Poetry

Journalism

Morris Rosenfeld, Simple Poetry

English

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The Departure Of Summer.

Summer is gone on swallows' wings,
And Earth has buried all her flowers:
No more the lark,--the linnet--sings,
But Silence sits in faded bowers.
There is a shadow on the plain
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There is in woods a solemn sound
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Yes, Summer's gone like pageant bright;
Its glorious days of golden light
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No rest--not one day in the seven for me?
Not one, from the maddening yoke to be free?
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The flow'rs and the trees will have withered ere long,
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--You long for the meadow lands breezy and fair?
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Morris Rosenfeld

Summer

I.

Hang out your loveliest star, O Night! O Night!
Your richest rose, O Dawn!
To greet sweet Summer, her, who, clothed in light,
Leads Earth's best hours on.
Hark! how the wild birds of the woods
Throat it within the dewy solitudes!
The brook sings low and soft,
The trees make song,
As, from her heaven aloft
Comes blue-eyed Summer like a girl along.

II.

And as the Day, her lover, leads her in
How bright his beauty glows!
How red his lips, that ever try to win
Her mouth's delicious rose!
And from the beating of his heart
Warm winds arise and sighing thence depart;
And from his eyes and hair
The light and dew
Fall round her everywhere,
And Heaven above her is an arch of blue.

III.

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Summer.

Tis Summer, I know by the blue of the sky;
By the trees' deeper green, as beneath them I lie;
And more than all these, by the lovely wild rose
That now in the woodland its pink blossom shows.

Now ring the sharp scythes of the mowers all day,
And they spread to the air the sweet-scented hay;
They pile up the wagon ere daylight is done,
And singing come home with the set of the sun.

I feel the warm west wind fan gently my cheek
As I sit on the grass, far too happy to speak;
And then in the twilight I see the faint spark
Of the fire-fly, flitting alone in the dark.

Oh! long happy days, when 'tis full of delight
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Summer Song Of The Swallow.

You will journey many a weary day and long,
Ere you will see so restful and sweet a place,
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And oh, full happily now my rest I take,
And care not I when it lightly rocks in the wind,
For the branch above though it bends will never break;
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Oh, the days are long, and the days are bright - and
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Now the stream that divides us from perfect bliss
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In Summer Time

When summer time has come, and all
The world is in the magic thrall
Of perfumed airs that lull each sense
To fits of drowsy indolence;
When skies are deepest blue above,
And flow'rs aflush,--then most I love
To start, while early dews are damp,
And wend my way in woodland tramp
Where forests rustle, tree on tree,
And sing their silent songs to me;
Where pathways meet and path ways part,--
To walk with Nature heart by heart,
Till wearied out at last I lie
Where some sweet stream steals singing by
A mossy bank; where violets vie
In color with the summer sky,--
Or take my rod and line and hook,
And wander to some darkling brook,
Where all day long the willows dream,
And idly droop to kiss the stream,
And there to loll from morn till night--

Paul Laurence Dunbar